One Year Later, Bush Will Sing Softer Tune At U.N.

And, in a speech to the General Assembly on Tuesday, September 23, he will tell the international community he has no regrets about going to war, Agence France-Presse (AFP) said.

"I will make it clear that I made the right decision and the others that joined us made the right decision," he told Fox News Channel in an interview broadcast Monday, September 22. "The world is a better place without Saddam Hussein."

But Bush will face lingering anger over the Iraq crisis, which U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan said this month had "shaken the system" and underscored the need for radical changes if the U.N. wanted to retain its authority.

Diplomats say there is a genuine desire at U.N. headquarters to avoid a replay of the bitter divisions that scarred the U.N. Security Council ahead of the war but it remains unclear if consensus can be reached on what to do next.

"I think there is broad agreement," one Council source said. "But the devil is in the details."

Washington has proposed a draft U.N. resolution that would authorize the deployment of multinational troops in Iraq. But it has met with resistance from France and Germany, who want a rapid timetable for a return to Iraqi sovereignty and an expanded U.N. role in the oil-rich country.

U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell has already ruled out the French-German proposals as "unrealistic," setting the stage for another standoff between Washington and its erstwhile European allies.

French President Jacques Chirac told Annan late Sunday, September 21, that France would participate in the discussions on the draft resolution "in an open, constructive manner," a spokeswoman for the French president said.

France would not veto the resolution but it would abstain from voting if the resolution did not include a key role for the United Nations in Iraq and a timetable for a prompt return of sovereignty to the Iraqi people, Chirac said in an interview Monday with The New York Times.

"I’m Not So Sure We Have To"
When Bush was asked in the Fox News Channel interview if he was willing to grant a larger role to the United Nations in Iraq’s political development, he replied: "I’m not so sure we have to."

But he said U.N. ‘assistance’ in writing a new Iraqi constitution and monitoring eventual elections would be "helpful."

And he appeared to insist on a seven-step U.S. plan for restoration of sovereignty to Iraq that reserves handover of power until last.

"The key on any resolution … is not to get in the way of an orderly transfer of sovereignty based upon a logical series of steps," he said. "And that’s constitution, elections, and then the transfer of authority."

At a summit in Berlin on Saturday, Britain, France and Germany were unable to bridge their own differences on how soon the U.S. occupation administration should hand power over to the Iraqis.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Bush’s main ally on Iraq, remained at odds with Chirac and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder in a reprise of the pre-war division.

Madeleine Albright, Powell’s predecessor under Bill Clinton and a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said Sunday that Bush would have to "mend diplomatic fences" in his address Tuesday to the U.N. General Assembly.

But in Berlin, Chirac did little to cover up his differences with Blair and U.S. resentment of the French shows little sign of abating. New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman this week said France was now a U.S. "enemy."

For his part, U.N. chief Annan said he wanted a clearly defined U.N. mandate and concrete steps to guarantee the safety of U.N. staff in Iraq, where a bombing at its Baghdad offices last month left 22 dead.

Another bombing near the U.N. headquarters in Baghdad early Monday killed an Iraqi security guard and the bomber, and wounded at least eight people, a U.S. military spokesman said.

Bush, meanwhile, has other matters to consider.

The occupation is costing one billion dollars per week. The guerrilla war has already killed more U.S. soldiers than the invasion of the country.

And with a re-election battle looming next year, a Newsweek poll on Saturday showed Bush’s approval rating on Iraq had fallen below 50 percent for the first time. Bush now has the approval of only 46 percent of the U.S. public.

These figures will lend new urgency when Bush addresses the U.N. Assembly and meets privately this week with Chirac, Schroeder, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf.

"We think (it) will be a good week," Bush’s national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, told reporters. "There will be a lot of face time."